We live in strange times in which an online following is considered the mark of success. This era of weblebrity seems caustic at times with companies, nonprofits and individuals chasing personal brands for their time. Yet, as we dig deeper we see that real influence online does not necessarily tether itself to the most well known, rather the most engaged. Some research released today, The Effectiveness of Celebrity Spokespeople in Social Fundraisers, conducted on case studies within the PayPal network validates this truth. The paper, my final as a Zoetican and co-authored with Henry T. Dunbar, concludes that online celebrity fundraising efforts are hit and miss. Further some of the biggest names get outpaced by lesser known web-based personalities or […]

Image by Beverly & Pack Today on Razoo’s site, Zoetica helped launch the Inspiring Generosity blog. As the managing editor of the blog, it is an honor to be involved with this ambitious effort. Further, it is a privilege to work with great bloggers like Alex Bornkessel, John Haydon and Estrella Rosenberg, and videographer Chris Suspect. Inspiring Generosity seeks to catalyze a critical industry breakthrough for nonprofits in online fundraising. Currently, the industry is stymied with past attempts for social fundraising not achieving significant scalable success. The exceptions garner excitement, but are not creating widespread industry best practices. In large part, we believe that social fundraising has yet to break through because the technology has not been intuitive, and approaches […]

Pre-order Geoff Livingston’s Welcome to the Fifth Estate today! There are times when a cause campaign is not about mutual reward for brand and beneficiary, rather responsible citizenship. Disasters are such times. There’s no greater example of this than the current triple crisis of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan. Using online tools, it’s easy to participate in charitable activities, and help situations like the Japanese crisis. When your cause or company’s employees and stakeholders want to act and participate on the frontlines of the relief effort, there are several things you can do. Whether it’s leveraging your online community, offering financial resources or volunteering, almost every person and organization has assets to offer. Before going too far, please […]

Two weeks ago Network for Good‘s Kate Olsen and I hosted a U-Stream chat to field questions and answer on our eGuide about Cause Marketing via Social Media. Well, we had some video broadcast issues with U-Stream, but managed to capture several questions via chat. Here are those questions and our answers. If anyone has additional questions, please feel free to ask in the comment section. We’d love to continue the conversation. Q1. How can nonprofits promote corporate partners’ investments (as part of their CSR programs), in ways that add value to corporations and also resonate with stakeholders? There needs to be a clear value proposition that works for all parties. That means it takes more than simply offering a […]

Zoetica teamed with Network for Good to co-author Cause Marketing through Social Media, a free eGuide (you can download it here). The twenty page guide covers five basic steps: The Basics Frame the Campaign Get People to Act Build on Momentum CSR In Times of Disaster There are many types of corporate-sponsored social good campaigns of all types. Companies deploy matching grant contests that ask participants to rally the most donations for their favorite causes. Some prefer crowdsourced voting contests that reward the most popular charities with corporate grants. And others offer campaigns that ask people to pledge volunteer time, acts of kindness or donation dollars to achieve a common goal. As the CSR movement evolves, companies will continue to […]

Results from our Network for Good/Zoetica cause marketing best practices survey yielded some interesting results. One hundred thirteen respondents from our general nonprofit and marketing communities on Twitter answered basic questions about the state of cause marketing in the United States. Of the respondents, 51 percent of them said their organization had participated in a cause marketing campaign in the past year. Only 21 percent of respondents felt that companies are doing a good job partnering with nonprofits. Thirty eight percent felt that companies are not doing a good job, while another 41 percent were unsure. Only seven percent of respondents felt companies did a good job of reporting results from cause marketing efforts. Sixty percent did not think companies […]